michelle franzen is live for us in new york. >> reporter: good morning, amara. certainly the president's speech will focus on what he talked about last year and rebuilding a lot of the internatial relatio following the bush administration's foreign policy. but many of the same issues are still -- president is still facing with foreign policy agenda, including much in the middle east. of course, combat units in iraq ft there at the end of awl august, but still, about 50,000 troops remain in iraq, training security forces there and in afghanistan, troops, of course, have been increased along with the attacks by insurgents. and certainly talks, peace talks for the mile east twin israeli and palestinian leaders got a jump start earlier this month, but so far, still no direct talks planned in the meantim ofcourse, iran and north korea's defiance over international sanctions and pressure to stoptheir nuclear program will take the stage, as well. president obama is expected to speak early this morning and following iran's president this afternoon act mood ma dean jahm